All this time she had thought she wasn’t tough enough, wasn’t good enough, but now she knew better. She was strong. She was good enough…and she wasn’t putting up with her ex’s crap for one more second.
“They want an heir to carry on the name,” he told her, but she could see from the uncertainty in his tone and expression that he hadn’t yet run his plans by the senior Bentleys. Which, on the plus side, meant that they hadn’t personally sent him here to take Mason. “Now tell me where the babysitter lives so that I can go see my son.”
“The day you offered me money to get rid of him, he stopped being your son.” She knew it was finally time to play the cards she’d kept so carefully guarded just in case this should ever come to pass. And then, as soon as he got the hell away from her, she’d finally use her defense fund to hire the best custody lawyer to keep Mason safe. “I have proof that your parents tried to bribe me with fifty thousand dollars to abort the baby and then another fifty thousand to never speak of my time with you. I kept the checks they forced on me.”
“This isn’t over,” he said, but even as he said it, she could see that she’d shaken his confidence. First by asking him if his parents—who kept him on a very short leash—knew what he was doing right now, and then by reminding him about the Bentley blood money. “My son is going to want to know who his father is. What are you going to tell him?”
“I won’t lie to him. Not about you, or anything. One day, when he’s old enough, it will be up to him if he wants to see you. But right now it’s up to me. And I don’t want you or your horrible family to have any part in his life.” She moved closer to him, with enough fierce purpose that though she was nearly a foot shorter and he’d come here to intimidate her, he was the one taking a step back. “You are going to go away now and leave us alone. And if you come back at any point without my express permission, I will go to my extensive contacts in the press and expose you and your parents for the kind of people you really are.”
He tried to stand his ground then, as he blustered, “Do you really think people will believe some slut who’s just trying to get her fifteen minutes in the spotlight? Or are they much more likely to believe a senator? It will be your word against theirs.”
She knew the word slut was supposed to hurt her, but she was bulletproof now. The scared girl who had broken down when he’d dumped her was gone, and in her place was a woman who would fight to the very end to protect the child she loved.
“Actually,” she said in a remarkably cheerful voice, “it will be their word against themselves.”
“Bullshit. You have no proof that they did anything wrong. Giving you money to help you out is not a crime.”
“When your parents came to my house, I was transcribing an interview. I had the recorder in my hand.” She enjoyed watching the color drain from Richard’s face. “They were so full of themselves that it never occurred to them that I would fight back, or that I would record their ‘offer.’ And you know how recognizable your father’s voice is.”
“I always knew you were trash,” Richard snarled at her. “All it ever took to get you into bed was the price of a fancy meal and a couple of glasses of champagne.”
She could have shot back a half-dozen barbs, but she was done with him. Completely done.
Besides, she knew that the reason he was trying to wound her now was because he finally understood that he couldn’t fight her for Mason, not if there was a chance of the former senator’s recording coming to light. Richard might not have known too much about her, but he clearly knew she wasn’t a liar. She wouldn’t make a threat like this if she didn’t intend to back it up.
Still, Grace would make sure the legal pieces were in place right away so that she would be armed and ready to fight for custody just in case he tried to take her to court for parental rights.
“I’ve given you your one and only warning to stay away from us,” she told him now. “And I wouldn’t make the mistake of pushing me. I might have been a pushover once, but I’m not anymore. If you so much as try to contact either me or Mason again without my permission, I’m going to let the entire world listen to the esteemed former U.S. senator and his wife try to make absolutely certain that I didn’t have the baby none of you wanted.”
With that, she stepped back into her apartment and closed the door in his face.
The shaking didn’t start until she tried to lock the door. It took her two tries to get the bolt into the slot, all the while thanking God that Mason hadn’t woken up. If he had started crying while she was facing down her ex, Richard would have realized that she’d been lying about Mason being with a babysitter and might very well have pushed in to see him.
She’d dealt with Richard all by herself and knew she’d dealt with him well. But in the aftermath of the confrontation, Grace needed desperately to lean on someone, to know that she wasn’t alone. Because even though she’d taken care of the situation with her ex, she needed Dylan. Not only to call him to tell him what had happened, but also to hear his calm, reassuring, loving voice before she got on the phone to do whatever it took to persuade the top child custody lawyer in the country to take her case.
Grace went to get her phone and that was when she saw the bag from the pharmacy sitting on her kitchen table. Oh God, how could she have forgotten?
She still needed to take the pregnancy test.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dylan had been counting the minutes until he could be with Grace again.
If Mason was still napping, he figured they’d barely get the front door closed before her clothes were off and he was inside of her. Later, after they’d spent the rest of the day playing with Mason and then put him to bed for the night, they’d move to a slow seduction. One in which pleasure would spiral out for hours and hours.
But the second Grace opened the door, despite how incredibly beautiful she looked in her dress, all those fantasies disappeared. She didn’t say anything, just stepped aside to let him in. When she closed and locked the door, her hands were shaking.
“What’s wrong? Is it Mason? Is he sick?”
“No. Mason’s fine.” She put her hand on Dylan’s arm before he could run into the bedroom to check for himself. “He’s perfect.”
Relief swamped him a beat before he realized that she wasn’t speaking to him as though they were lovers. Or even friends. Instead, that wall she’d had up during their first interview was back. And she’d taken her hand off his arm too fast when she should have been pulling him closer instead.